Orchha

Continuing north, I took another night train to the village of Orchha, which is the site of a large number of palaces, temples and cenotaphs (tombs for kings). These were built between the 15th and 17th centuries and have a combination of Hindu and Muslim architecture due to invasions and power changing hands back and forth.



I happened to be in town during the important holiday of Shivratri, dedicated to the god Shiva. There was an enormous parade (for the size of the town) featuring men with flowing white beards on horses, women dressed up like dieties, young guys throwing paint at you and kids dancing wildly to techno music. And lots of people carrying what appeared to be large floor lamps powered by these scary looking generators (they resembled large sewing machines).



I didn't run into a lot of tourists in Orchha, so I was surprised to see Chris and Lisa, some lovely people from England that I met in Hampi. They had just made friends with this local farmer who invites people over to his fields to cook them dinner. I had a super rustic meal with them out there which was a lot of fun. Fortunately they were out of the 35 rupee (about 75 cents) bags of wine that they had the night before. Evidently hangover central...